Passengers: The Novel
Author's note: Love the movie 'Passengers'. In fact I went and saw it six times. Call me pathetic. But I so thought that there should have been a novelized version. So I'm writing it myself. Like all fan fiction there are a great deal of exaggeration and embellishment. Enjoy!
Prologue
Date - March 15, 2916
The planet, Earth. The cradle of civilization. In the 800 years since the 21'st century, there had been no 'Third World War'. For 800 years life on Earth had continued on with little incident. Just a few corrupted governments with greedy politicians, and a few military conflicts between a few countries here and there, but civilization still carried on as normal for 800 years without the human race ever destroying itself.
But what was once a population of 7 billion in the 21'st century soon became 13 billion.
There then became strict population control. In places that used to be remote and secluded Quickly became explored and then small towns were built. Those small towns became Bigger towns. Eventually those bigger towns became major cities.
But the planet became overcrowded. Older small towns that used to be havens for people who didn't like the big city soon became uncomfortably claustrophobic.
No one was homeless anymore. Everyone was given either a small house or apartment.
No one went hungry. Though initially much farmland had been and then built on, food was no longer problem worldwide, for they had discovered a way to artificially synthesized biological nutritional protein, which was able to be made to look like any food and taste exactly like the real thing. 99 out of 100 people couldn't tell the difference. Though there were still some fanatics that claimed that such food was unnatural and therefore should not be eaten, and therefore only preferred the real thing. Much like how during the 21st century some people would not eat genetically altered food.
Then came, The 'Homestead Company'.
The Homestead Company initially was a small branch of NASA that's was attempting to explore beyond the solar system. It took hundreds of years. But by the late 23rd century they had successfully had a probe reach a neighboring solar system, 'Alpha Centauri'. And there the probe sent back data saying that it had found a planet that was, not 100% identical to Earth, no, but was superficially similar.
The planet in question had no life. But it was nearly identical in size and shape to Earth, had a few salt water oceans, and the most important part, a molten core and with that a geo-magnetic field.
Experimental terraforming technology had been used on Mars for decades. They had managed to create within Mars a breathable atmosphere, but because Mars had no molten core, it had no magnetic field. It was still uninhabitable except when the people stayed inside the radiation proof structures.
On Earth, with the terraforming technology eventually being mastered, they had cured the environment. Filtering out all of the pollution in Earth's atmosphere and they even stopped global warming as well as restore the Arctic Ice on the poles. They simply converted seawater into freshwater and then dispensed it in the Arctic temperatures on the poles where it froze, and overtime the oceans got a little shallower while fresh water ice continued to build up on the poles.
They had long since mastered the construction of large one-million ton interstellar Starships. The Starship's Center module would remain stationary, while the outer modules would rotate to create 'centripetal force' as a form of gravity, while contrary to science fiction, science had never discovered 'artificial gravity'.
Contrary to science fiction, science never managed to discover 'Warp Drive', or 'Hyperdrive', so they were confined to use a fusion powered, 'slower-than-light' 'Ion-Drive' in order to make a ship reach incredible velocity within a long period of time. A one way trip from Earth to Alpha Centauri took 19 years.
The ship contained a scientific crew along with terraforming technology. And within a few decades they had successfully turned the suitable planet in the Alpha Centauri star system into a carbon copy of Earth. They planted seeds and trees, bacteria for making soil fertile, and they built advanced living structures.
And the Homestead Company named this planet after themselves, and called the planet, Homestead I.
The Homestead Company then became the most popular Interstellar Cruise Line. There were others where people would take cruises on large Starships for luxury and fun. But usually they were just short trips around the solar system.
They had discovered how to place a human into hibernation. Complete and total suspended animation. As long as the person remained in suspended animation they would not age.
The hibernation technology allowed them to keep a person completely healthy forever as long as they were in suspended animation. Though putting them into hibernation could only be done under medical supervision. There was no way to do it without a team of doctors.
None the less, people didn't worry about that. Thousand upon thousands of people spent all of their money to get a spot on one of the Homestead Company's Interstellar Starships to begin immediate colonization of, Homestead I.
Of course, Homestead I, was only the first of many newly colonized planets. Several of Jupiter's moons had been colonized like Mars. As well as the moons of a few other planets in the solar system.
Venus and Mercury were unfit for any kind of terraforming or colonization.
But there were several other planets. Hundreds of nearby solar systems had been explored by thousands of long-range probes that had traveled for centuries.
There was a solar system about 60 light-years from Earth called the Bakty System, where they found another suitable planet. And they called it Homestead II.
And in countless other solar systems they discovered other planets that were eventually terraformed and colonization of those worlds began.
Earth would always remain the cradle of civilization, but there were thousands of people on Earth that wanted space and room to grow. And that was the slogan that the Homestead Company always used. The Homestead Company made trillions of dollars off of the colony planets because people literally paid everything they have. And the Homestead Company spared no expense on their Starships. The starships were supposed to be 100% safe.
The starship's primary systems were designed by the experts and then tested a thousand times over to be Fail-Safe. But even if the primary system somehow failed the ships were supposed to have countless redundant systems.
And since the people were putting their faith in the hibernation pods, the hibernation pods were also designed to be Fail-Safe. With built-in redundancies.
The hibernation pods for supposed to maintain the occupant's life while ensuring that they were healthy, and that was where all the redundancies were. If something went wrong with the life support system of a hibernation pod the hibernation pods were still supposed to continue to operate and maintain the life of the occupant.
In a Tech Factory in the city of Atlanta, an assembly line with fast-moving robotic arms were forging out of raw materials the components for making Electronic components for advanced Machinery. One such component was the internal metal-like Polymer Wire circuits for the 'Clock chips' that would be used to be installed into hibernation pods for suspended animation.
Millions of such Clock Chips had been manufactured on countless assembly lines in countless factories around the world. They all used a standard manufacturing method from their design that had been perfected and re-perfected over and over again. One such Clock Chip, with its individual serial number 'V27G4X91-X439' was inserted with a newly forged Synthetic metal-like polymer wire for one of its circuits. But within it contained a one in a hundred-billion random chance minute flaw. When Clock-Chip V27G4X91-X439, passed through a laser scanner for an inspection. The laser scanner was both designed and supposed to be able to detect 'imperfections' in the minute components of the bigger components. Had V27G4X91-X439, failed the inspection it would have been discarded and then it's raw materials recycled, but the minute flaw within that single wire was apparently so small that the inspection laser scanner could not detect it, and V27G4X91-X439 passed inspection and a few hours later, going down the assembly line, a robotic arm took V27G4X91-X439 and installed it into the 'date and time' Computer core of one out of thousands of freshly manufactured Hibernation Pods that were being inspected for use on Interstellar Starships.
Chapter 1
July 2, 2949
The Starship Avalon was flying at 0.48 the speed of light.
It was a 1.4 million ton Interstellar luxury liner. The Homestead Company's Premier Starship. Commission date - January 27, 2418.
It was currently on route from Earth to The Colony world of Homestead II. For over 500 years it had received overhauls and upgrades from 'Space-Dock', in orbit of several different worlds. Many other Starships had made this trip on this course.
The entire ship was currently on low power mode, except for a few of the primary systems.
There were five thousand passengers in suspended animation. There was a crew of 258 who were also in suspended animation. The ship was currently being flown on autopilot. The ship's computer was equipped with an artificial intelligence that was capable of carrying out all the ship's functions without crew. Though of course when the passengers are awake they prefer to have humans looking after them as opposed to just a mindless machine.
The crew was supposed to wake up five months before they arrive at Homestead II. Where then the passengers would then wake up Four months before they arrived at Homestead II, where the passengers would enjoy The Starship Avalon's many luxury amenities, compliments of the Homestead Company.
The hibernation pods were following their own time and date programmed into their own computer cores, as well as following the time and date of The ship's primary computer core. Everything is maintained perfectly. There was one small malfunction with a single insignificant system maybe once a year where the redundant systems would take over and cover for it almost instantly. The entire ship was supposed to be Fail-Safe all the time with no problems. For it was necessary to take such safety measures, because the journey from Earth to Homestead II was 120 years, one way.
The ship's Ion Drive was continually accelerating them. The acceleration was hardly anything but they gained considerable velocity after many many years of traveling like they still had a long way to go.
The ship was protected by a powerful energy Shield which was supposed to heat any inanimate object in outer space that comes in contact with it to disintegration point before it can penetrate The Shield.
It was around this time that while the ship was flying on its programed course, that it passed through a random meteor shower in deep space. Something that happens every now and then with other Starships. The first few small meteorites impacted the forward Shield and The Shield protected the ship flawlessly, however the computers artificial intelligence immediately realized this and decided to take a few unnecessary over-precautious precautions by diverting power from the living and luxury modules to reinforce the forward Shield. But one of the meteorites that they were heading for them was half the size of the ship. The ship did not have ultra evasive maneuvering capability, it could only fly on its predicted course. Had it detected the large meteorite significantly sooner it would have made a mild coarse adjustment to fly around it but now it didn't have time. The giant meteorite half the size of the ship impacted the forward Shield. The Shield did its job. The giant meteorite was completely disintegrated upon impact. However by lack of imagination by the scientists and engineers who designed the shield technology, the impact of the giant meteorite cause a tiny hole in the ship's Shield that was fixed by the ship's redundant systems within a fraction of a second. But within that fraction of a second a single basketball size meteorite that was right behind the giant meteorite got through the hole and at incredible velocity it penetrated the ship's hull within the engineering section and punched right through the wall of the primary reactor room, where it then hit the reactor's primary computer core. The entire Computer was not shut down, no, but just one of its modules. The rest of the computer took over, and the excessive Redundant systems attempted to correct the problem. But this kind of damage was never expected by the scientists and Engineers that designed the ship. It cause power fluctuations throughout the ship and a whopping 17 simultaneous malfunctions happened all at once. Nothing major. The malfunctions appeared on the primary hologram console on the bridge in the form of 'Red'-diagnostic scans. Red, indicating that something was wrong. On the red diagnostic scans the most functions registered a word that flashed, 'REPAIRING', and the word 'repairing', flashed for only a few seconds until the malfunction turned 'green' where the green indicated that all was well, and the malfunctions disappeared, one at a time 16 out of the 17 in quick succession. But the word 'repairing' kept flashing on one that stayed red. The malfunction was titled 'Hibernation Pod 1498'.
Within the large hibernation chamber within the Living Module, The hibernation pod would have being corrected by the ship's redundant systems, except for one thing, there was a power surge that went through the circuit board. This was something that happened within every hibernation pod on the ship, however the hibernation pods were designed to be able to withstand this sort of thing. All except for one single component in hibernation pod 1498. The minute Imperfection within V27G4X91-X439, that the Inspection Scanner at the factory was not able to detect had to take the full brunt of the energy surge from the ship's malfunction and meteorite impact in the reactor room, and while it was initially supposed to be able to withstand it, the minute flaw within V27G4X91-X439 caused the whole chip to burn out. What this then did was it made the computer core within the hibernation pod think that the ship's Journey had come to an end, and that it was time to wake up The Passengers on the ship, however this was independent to each hibernation pod individually.
It was in that moment with all of those circumstances that because of the burning out of Clock-Chip V27G4X91-X439...the occupant of hibernation pod 1498...was prematurely awakened.
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